Dumb Beasts in Hallowed Tombs
Swedish Funerary Poetry for Animals 16701760
Fiction & Literature, Literary Theory & Criticism, European, German, Ancient & Classical, Theory
| Author: | Daniel Möller | ISBN: | 9783653973426 |
| Publisher: | Peter Lang | Publication: | November 27, 2015 |
| Imprint: | Peter Lang GmbH, Internationaler Verlag der Wissenschaften | Language: | English |
| Author: | Daniel Möller |
| ISBN: | 9783653973426 |
| Publisher: | Peter Lang |
| Publication: | November 27, 2015 |
| Imprint: | Peter Lang GmbH, Internationaler Verlag der Wissenschaften |
| Language: | English |
When Kersti Berg died in 1735, she was honoured with an obituary in the form of a poetic epitaph composed by Olof von Dalin. A modern-day reader can easily get the impression that Dalin’s poem is an example of a funerary poem for a human being – one of the eighteenth century’s most common poetic genres. Kersti Berg, however, was a dog, and Dalin’s poem belongs to another genre, namely, the animal epitaph. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries this was a frequently practised form of poetry which could be used for a great many purposes, from imitations of ancient originals to masked poems composed to convey a political message or to further the writer’s career.
When Kersti Berg died in 1735, she was honoured with an obituary in the form of a poetic epitaph composed by Olof von Dalin. A modern-day reader can easily get the impression that Dalin’s poem is an example of a funerary poem for a human being – one of the eighteenth century’s most common poetic genres. Kersti Berg, however, was a dog, and Dalin’s poem belongs to another genre, namely, the animal epitaph. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries this was a frequently practised form of poetry which could be used for a great many purposes, from imitations of ancient originals to masked poems composed to convey a political message or to further the writer’s career.
